-Kill One, Kill a Thousand-

The Hokage had been sitting in his office, dreaming of glory and power when someone completely unexpected walked in the door. "M- Master!"

His master's face was shrouded in darkness, as it usually was. At the master's side was a silver-haired man with a patient look about him, and behind them were the two ANBU guards who had let them in. These two guards weren't originally from Konoha, but had been covertly inserted into Konoha's ANBU.

"Looks like you're having a good time, Hokage-sama" The master said with a fake entertained air to his voice. "The whole village is eating out of your hands, you really are a wonderful actor."

"Thank you, master." He said humbly – very humbly. "What is it you need of me?"

"I was just looking around I happened to be passing by, I wanted to check up on things. So what's the latest, Hokage-sama?" His voice became more sinister. "Is there anyone to get rid of?"

"I can't think of anyone off the top of my head." The Hokage said.

"I hear that Uzumaki Naruto was in town a while back, what's the latest on them?" He asked, his voice was just dripping with curiosity.

"Both Uzumaki Naruto and Hyuuga Hinata are dead, Master." The Hokage said dutifully.

The master froze completely. "I contacted you not too long ago... why didn't you tell me that then?"

"It... It didn't seem important, Master." He said, fearful for his life. "Please forgive me."

The master though, only laughed. "Haha, not to worry." He said.

"I- I don't mean to question you... but what are you talking about?" Hokage asked, completely perplexed. His master was always a confusing person, but today he was acting very different. But it was only the third time he had seen the man in person.

"Oh, it's simple really." Master said. His voice was suddenly cold and hollow. "One doesn't just kill Uzumaki Naruto."

"What... what do you mean?" Hokage asked, Master was acting very strange.

"I'm saying that boy is alive." He answered. "Uzumaki Naruto, dead? What a joke."

"Then, does that mean... Jiraiya tricked me?" Hokage asked nobody. "That traitor!"

"Calm down, there's nothing we can do about it now." Master said. "Besides, I want Naruto alive. For now, I'm going to survey the village."

"How do you plan on getting around? Your face is very well known here." The Hokage asked worriedly. "If you're seen, what would happen?"

"Oh?" Master said with a confused voice. "I guess you're right, I was famous around here, back in the day. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to make you file a full report instead."

"Thank you, Master. That is much better than risking yourself like that."

"I'm sure." He said quietly, turned and headed for the door.

"Oh, there's one last thing, Master." The Hokage said, remembering something. "You asked if there was anyone who needed to be killed, how about someone who opposes the war plan?"

"Not really." Master said, unconcerned. "Unless it's a somewhat important person, it doesn't really matter."

"What if it's Hyuuga Hiashi?" The Hokage asked with a smile. He knew that was an important person.

"Hmm..." Master seemed to think for a moment. "I'll look into it." Having said that, the mysterious man walked out the office doors.

The Hokage knew that by morning, Hyuuga Hiashi would no longer be a problem.

"What's up, Itachi? You're acting strange." Kisame said to his partner. "Something wrong?"

"It's nothing." Itachi murmured in his usual tone. "I was just wondering how Naruto-kun is doing lately."

"What are you doing, worrying about that brat?" Kisame asked, confused. "Sure, he's got the Kyuubi, but that's about it."

"Not necessarily" The Uchiha replied.

"What are you talking about?" His partner asked, even more confused now. Itachi was thinking strangely all the time, but this was a whole new level of strange.

"My younger brother..." Itachi explained. "He's started to move again, and he has an important with Naruto. We need to make sure that nothing goes wrong, and maybe Naruto can even help us."

On the way from Tea Country back to Waterfall Village, the trip was eerily quiet. The girls had barely said a word, Hinata was sticking closer to Naruto than usual. Ryu avoided eye contact with Risuki and preferred the area near Naruto, while Sasame avoided both Naruto and Hinata, staying closer to Risuki.

All in all, Naruto was confused as hell. "What's going on you guys, you're all acting weird."

"It's nothing..." Hinata said quietly. "You shouldn't worry about it."

"Yeah." Ryu agreed. "It's probably best left alone for now."

Naruto however, wasn't buying it. "Come on, is there some secret you're trying to hide from me or something?"

"To sum it up for you," Risuki said matter-of-factly. "Ryu is an ass, Hinata feels guilty and Sasame is emotionally distressed."

The three that she targeted felt a slight urge to shut the girl up. Although some comments like that were to be expected from Risuki, they had all come to realize.

"Huh?" Naruto looked genuinely baffled. "I'll leave the "Ryu is an ass" thing alone but-"

"Yeah, thanks for the support." Ryu interrupted sarcastically, feeling singled out as the bad guy.

"But" Naruto continued. "What's wrong with you guys?" He asked, looking at Hinata and Sasame in turn. "Something happen?"

"They had a very emotional conversation." Risuki explained. "Hinata found out that there's something that Sasame wants desperately. But that is something that only Hinata can have. Sasame is depressed because she can't have that wonderful thing, and Hinata feels bad because she can't help but keep it to herself."

"How do you know all that?" Naruto asked, even more perplexed than before.

"I'm a girl." She said annoyedly. "We talk to each other, they both talked to me about it last night. And you shouldn't ask about it any more until we get to your base, when they've both had time to settle their feelings."

Naruto was almost intimidated by the way Risuki handled the situation, with her matter-of-fact tone and not-really-interested attitude. She seemed to be someone to stay on the good side of, and she had a monster inside her on top of that.

"Maybe we should go a little faster." Hinata said. "I want to get home soon."

Home? Naruto was surprised, and more than a little happy at hearing her say that. He didn't know why he was so happy, but he knew it was the first time she had referred to Waterfall Village as her home. It was the first time anyone other than Osanai had. It's our home. He thought as he smiled at Hinata.

She caught his glimpse, his eyes had something in them that she hadn't seen enough of lately. Had she been the one to put the glow back in his gaze? She didn't know, but it didn't matter to her.

The pace picked up as they started dashing through the treetops with their chakra-enhanced muscles. But Naruto had a weird feeling scratching at the back of his brain. He couldn't tell exactly what it was, but he decided to ignore it and keep going. The sooner he got to Waterfall, the sooner he could introduce everyone to his new friends.

In the Waterfall Village, Genka and Shuuzen waited for the teens to return, completely unaware of the two new additions to their band of would-be heroes. They hadn't found out that Sasame had left until several hours after she was gone. But they weren't too worried, since she wasn't on Konoha's hit list.

Her mission to defend "Gami Enka" and her brother "Ruto", was still officially legitimate even though Enka and Ruto had been unmasked as two high-level missing-nins. That meant that nobody had any real reason to attack her. And in these times of high political stress, a village couldn't afford to take any chances with endangering an innocent girl looking for her friends.

"So what do you think of Naruto any Hinata's relationship?" Shuuzen asked her old friend. They had been friends since childhood, Shuuzen had always lived near the Rain village, and Genka was from a noble family, so she was able to come and go as she pleased, unless of course, she had a mission to complete.

Genka smiled. "They're really a cute couple. And the way Naruto treats her, it really brings me back..."

Shuuzen smiled, but her pinkish eyes showed a hint of pity or sadness. "Ireno?"

"Yeah." Genka said as she took a long sip of her sake. "Ireno. I still miss him."

"Who's Ireno?" they heard a voice. Genka turned around to see Jiraiya sitting on the barstool next to her. He had a curious look on his face, displacing his usual immature smile or pervert eyes.

Genka sighed and looked at the bar. "He was my boyfriend... a long time ago. A Jounin in my home village, one of the best."

Shuuzen spoke up when Genka slowed down. "He was really a great guy, he would come to visit me with Genka sometimes, we had so much fun. The three of us were even friends as kids, back when Genka and Ireno wouldn't have ever considered a romantic relationship."

"But we did after a while." Genka picked back up. "We were sixteen or seventeen when he asked me out for our first date. But it wasn't much of a date, we were both busy Chuunins by then, and didn't have the same schedule. All we could really do was go out and find some place private for an hour or so late at night."

"It didn't take long before we were completely smitten." She said with a nostalgic smile. "He told me that he loved me just a month after that day. Eventually we worked out a schedule where we could spend more of our precious free time together, and eventually started doing all sorts of things. The kind of things you would enjoy, Jiraiya."

"What happened to him?" Jiraiya asked soberly. Well, soberly for a drunk at least. "You said you miss him."

Genka stared a bit harder at the countertop, noticing that it seemed to be made of some wood she'd never seen before. "He asked me to marry him when we were about twenty. I was so excited, I told everyone about it. My family and his were very good friends, and they were all happy for us. We sent out wedding invitations, ordered a massive cake, the works... and then..."

Genka stopped talking there, she just stared at the counter. The mysterious wood pattern was just the distraction she needed, trying to figure out what tree it might have come from.

Shuuzen sighed after a few seconds. "The week before the wedding, he was sent on a routine mission with his fresh Genin team. He was supposed to come back the day before the wedding, so he kissed Genka goodbye... and never came back."

Jiraiya's eyes narrowed and dropped a little to stare at the same point on the bar that Genka was looking at. "What happened?"

"His whole team was wiped out." Genka said painfully. "Nobody ever found out how or why, they just found the remains. You couldn't even call them 'bodies', they were so mutilated. A routine escort mission, and something completely smeared them all over the ground. They confirmed their identities with their teeth and the names engraved on the back of their headbands."

Suddenly, she smiled. It was a sad, painful smile, but still a smile. "But that's in the past, I can't do anything about it. But if I can prevent it from happening again, I'll be happy. Hinata and Naruto remind me so much of my past, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I let anything happen to either one of them."

"Is that why you gave up your lifestyle?" Jiraiya asked quietly, it was barely even a whisper. "For the relationship of two people who don't even have anything to do with you?"

"I guess so." She said with an ironic laugh. "People always say how it's almost impossible to change someone's heart. But look at me. I've become exactly what I was running away from for the latter part of my life. Did it really take much to change my heart?"

"Born as a ninja, die as a ninja... or something like that." Jiraiya said slowly, reciting each word as if it had some profound impact on the world.

"Yeah... something like that."

"But you know..." Jiraiya said, his voice becoming a tiny bit happier. "That boy... he has that effect on people."

"So I hear." Genka said with a small smile.

"He has the power to shape destiny, and the conviction to change a person's heart... if only he was born a day later, then maybe he would have been able to make more of a difference within the hearts of Konoha."

"Maybe he wouldn't have gotten that power to begin with." Genka pointed out. "The power to change people, that is."

"I suppose you're right." Jiraiya said with a sigh. "Have you ever asked yourself, 'why must the truly strong be the ones that suffer?'?"

"That's a stupid question." Genka replied with a disgusted laugh, as if she knew all too well the answer to that question. "It's because if the weak had to do it, everyone would kill themselves."

It was late at night, Naruto was the only one awake from the group. He had volunteered to stay up and keep watch while the others rested. The tension that hung over the group hadn't lifted that day, nobody spoke more than five words at a time after they started to pick up the pace.

Naruto didn't like it, but there wasn't really anything he could do. He didn't know what was bothering the girls, or why Ryu and Risuki weren't arguing like they usually did. Or more accurately, why Risuki wasn't being mildly abrasive toward Ryu while he ignored her. Right now, she ignored him and he just ignored her.

Naruto sighed as he watched the last part of the fire die down into hot coals. The heat was still more than enough to keep him warm, he didn't need much of anything to sustain himself. Food, water, warmth, sleep, all things he could go for days without much of. But it was a double-edged sword, since the reason for his stamina was a monster locked up inside him.

He pulled his eyes from the warm cinders and looked skyward. "Even with this curse... why do I have so many friends?"

"It's because you're an understanding person." He heard a voice from back toward the girls' tent. Risuki walked toward the fire pit and sat across from the blonde.

"That's not really what I meant." Naruto said, just above a whisper. "But I guess it answered part of my question."

"Not the important part though." Risuki muttered.

Naruto sighed and closed his eyes. "Yeah, not the important part. Have you ever asked yourself that question?"

"I haven't really had many friends in my life, so I was lucky enough that I didn't have to ask myself."

"Lucky and unlucky at the same time." Naruto said. "But you know what I mean though?"

"Yeah." She nodded, a tiny shaking motion. "It's not 'why do I have friends?' as much as it's 'why do I allow myself to have friends?' isn't it?"

"Something like that, yeah." Naruto whispered. "You cold?"

"A little, yeah." Risuki said as she stared at the quickly cooling coals in the fire pit.

Suddenly, the flames burst back up and brought new warmth with them. Risuki stared in surprise at the burning fire for a moment, then looked at Naruto. He was looking into the fire, a look in his eyes that betrayed some feeling of regret. Regret of what, she didn't know.

After minute or so, she caught herself staring at his face. She couldn't help but wonder what was behind the expressio, what he seemed so regretful of.

"Hey, Naruto?" She asked. "Did you do that to the fire?"

Naruto nodded and smiled. "Yeah. I didn't want you to be cold after all."

"How'd you do it?" She asked curiously. "Was it a ninja technique? I've never seen something that worked that way before."

"No, it was more like natural ability." He said with a grin. "Not mine, but still a natural ability."

Risuki understood what that meant. It meant that it was a side-effect from having the Kyuubi, so she decided not to talk about it. "Hey, Naruto. Are all the girls in Shugokage in love with you?"

"Huh?" Naruto was definitely caught off guard with that question. "W-what are you talking about?"

"Those two, Hinata and Sasame. They both worship you. If you wanted, you could have whichever one you liked." Risuki explained with a half-sadistic and half-friendly grin.

"Both of them?" Naruto stared at Risuki with wide eyes.

"What, you didn't notice?" She asked with an entertained grin that looked all too similar to Genka's

"But Sasame-chan is so young." Naruto said with his clueless face, as he held his hand at about chest level, indicating her diminutive height.

"She's only what, a year or two younger than you." The brunette said as her grin widened. "Face it, you might wind up having to choose between them."

Naruto's eyes became as small as pinpricks and his expression became clueless and spaced out as that set in, then they became as huge as his favorite ramen bowl, after he realized what it meant. "Aaah this is bad!" he mumbled as loudly as he dared.

"Why?" She asked, her smile disappearing all of a sudden, turning into a confused frown.

"Because I don't really want to hurt Sasame." He said, looking at the girls' tent. "She's kind of sensitive, I think."

Risuki laughed out loud at that. "You're so weird, Uzumaki Naruto. You don't think like most men at all."

"Eh, Risu." Naruto mumbled quietly. "You're not exactly normal yourself."

Risuki's eye twitched violently. "What did you call me?"

"Risu." Naruto said with an evil grin that slightly resembled her own.

"I don't appreciate that cute, fuzzy sounding nickname." She said as her eye continued twitching.

"Think of it as a compliment." He said as his grin widened. He even laughed when she almost blushed.

"I dare you to call me that again." She said as she threw herself back onto the ground.

"Fine, fine." He said casually. "If you make such a big deal out of it, it really takes away all the fun. But how come you're only like this at night?"

"Like what?" She asked, confused. "I don't think anything changes at night."

"Well, you're friendlier and you have a better sense of humor. And you seem to be a lot more understanding too."

Risuki smiled. "It's got nothing to do with the night. It's just because I can't act this way around Ryu or the others. When I'm alone, or even with you, I can be a little more relaxed."

"Why me?" Naruto asked. This time he was the one confused.

"Isn't it obvious?" She was a little annoyed that she had to explain it all to him. "It's because we understand each other. I know that you'll see through my personality sooner or later, because you're probably the same. You have something like that to hide yourself in too, don't you?"

"I used to." He said happily. "But I don't need it anymore."

Hyuuga Neji was having a boring day. But boring was good sometimes, if you were a ninja. It meant that no war had broken out, and that nobody had tried to assassinate you.

It was getting late, and he wanted to get home. This lack of missions was starting to take its toll on the Shinobi of Konoha village. The rough relations with other countries was bad publicity, so less people came with missions for them.

Most of the ninjas in the village were pushing for the war to get in motion faster. They all knew it was inevitable, and it was unbelievable that there hadn't been an attack during the Chuunin Exam. Konoha was officially at war with Stone, even though the violence hadn't yet begun, and there were supporters for both sides. And some other villages were beginning to have turmoil with matters completely unrelated, threatening war on each other. It looked like things were going to get messy soon.

There hadn't been a secret meeting of the four who knew that Naruto was alive. There wasn't really anything to bring up. So he was just heading home after a rather boring day of simple missions, without even leaving the village once.

But that was all about to change. His day was about to get very interesting, and he had a bad feeling as he approached the main Hyuuga mansion.

Neji carefully opened the door and peered inside, the lights were on and nobody seemed present. He walked in a little further, searching the house for anything suspicious. Nothing in this room, so he went down the hall as the feeling grew even stronger.

Around the corner, he started to hear something. Someone was crying.

"Hanabi-sama!" He recognized the voice and started running toward the sound of her crying. When he found her in the dojo, she was crying over the body of Hyuuga Hiashi.

"What the hell?" Neji managed to gasp out as he ran over to them. "What happened here?"

"I- I don't know." Hanabi answered between sobs. "I just found him here."

"Hiashi-sama!" Neji said as he got down next to the man's body. "Hiashi-sama!"

There was no answer.

Neji looked around for clues as to what had happened. There were no signs of a struggle, and no wounds on his body. But there was one thing; scribbled on the dirt floor was a name.

Uchiha Sasuke.

-End of Chapter Twenty Five-

Revised on 9/7/2011